Higgs and Sons

Due to the demanding nature of the job, employees at Higgs & Sons are often off-site with clients or traveling between offices. As one of the largest law firms in the West Midlands, UK, Higgs & Sons business model depends on superior client service, including the continuous availability of their legal staff. To maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, the company needed to move away from the legacy telephony system that limited the ability for customers and staff to efficiently interact.

“The ShoreTel UC system is both intuitive and easy to us. We have quickly adapted to the new system and are able to make full use of all its features without the need for any specific technical knowledge.”
— Helen Hill, Head of Front of House, Higgs & Sons.

Higgs & Sons aging telephony system consistently resulted in a round-robin of phone numbers required to reach partners. The existing fragmented system prevented clients and partners from connecting easily. The company’s IT network also suffered due to incorrect configuration and its WAN running at full capacity. Enhanced disaster recovery was at the forefront of the firm’s mind when implementing the new system because thousands of clients rely on Higgs & Sons to effectively protect their interests. 

“We opted for the ShoreTel UC system as it not only proved to be the most scalable and easy to manage, but also offered an all-inclusive cluster licensing…the ShoreTel licensing model bundled all features, necessary hardware and supporting costs together and proved to be the most cost-effective system.”
— Stephen Brown, IT Director, Higgs & Sons.

The existing array of hubs, cluttering Higgs & Sons server room, was removed and replaced with a compact, feature rich, ShoreTel Unified Communications system with 235 ShoreTel IP Phones, eight ShoreTel Voice Switches, 30 ShoreTel Communicator licenses with mobile access, and ShoreTel Converged Conferencing. The ShoreTel UC system is a completely distributed, scalable solution layered on the IP network with no single point of failure – offering Higgs & Sons complete availability required for mission-critical operations. Benefits include:

• Seamless access between mobile devices and remote computers.
• Client calls always get through to the appropriate person.
• Communications consolidated across all offices.

“We have witnessed increased productivity of our employees as a result of receiving full remote access to calls, voicemail and email services…Staff are no longer afraid of missing important client calls if they step away from the office.”
— Stephen Brown, IT Director, Higgs & Sons.